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Trust, Respect and Empowerment Cycles

It’s an irony that has struck me for decades now, having seen and experienced it so often. Call me naive, but wouldn’t one think, on the surface at least, that the two institutions most likely to practice toler

Trust, Respect and Empowerment Cycles

It’s an irony that has struck me for decades now, having seen and experienced it so often. Call me naive, but wouldn’t one think, on the surface at least, that the two institutions most likely to practice tolerance, open-mindedness, mutual respect and teamwork would be churches and educational institutions?

Why is it then that these two influential role models are often the last places we find these admirable types of things happening? It can be disheartening as well as ironic.

My purview is not religion, of course, so let’s focus on education. I think higher education can be the worst, but let’s focus briefly on the public school systems, where the trust/respect factor is also a potential problem.

A few months back, I wrote about what I called the “chain of influence” (or empowerment). On the one hand, we have teachers who answer to administrators who answer to a school board, which answers to the public that elects them. On the other hand, if the system is to work effectively, once the public has elected a school board, they must somehow trust and empower that school board. That board in turn must hire, trust and empower the administrators, who must hire, trust and empower the teachers (who are obviously hired to teach and empower the students — the theoretical focus of it all!).

It’s a two-way ladder where the players on the bottom of the “authority” ladder — teachers — are at the top of the influence/empowerment ladder, as they most directly affect the learning in the classroom. It’s almost a necessity of the structure, but it can be a tricky situation, requiring lots of mutual trust in order to work well.

Here’s the deal: Find a model school system where good things are happening, and you can pretty much guarantee that you’ll find respect, trust and support flowing (fairly) freely back and forth among all these groups. Find a system where this flow is jammed in several spots, and you can guarantee the big picture results are not that good.

So, here’s a quick thought exercise: Pick the school system of your choice, and then pick any two of the following groups: parents (citizens), teachers, administrators, school boards. Then answer the following question after inserting your two groups in any order: Does Group A support, trust and respect Group B (and vice versa) most of the time? My guess is that, too often at least, the answer is ‘no’ in at least one direction.

Is it any wonder then that our American school systems (and therefore our students!) are in the collective trouble they often seem to be in?

There is no “quick fix” solution to this possible trust/support/respect problem. The fix — when needed — is very hard!! But perhaps just identifying and isolating one part of the problem may be a good first step.

All of us, no matter which and/or how many of the groups we are in, suffer when the trust, support and empowerment cycles start to break down. The quicker we all work to re-establish those systems together, both locally and nationally, the better we will all be. The quality of our children’s education depends on it.